Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Sévigné. As he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter’s recipient, he becomes privy to a secret history that will alter the course of his own life. Meanwhile, as his elder brother takes up medical studies in Modena and their younger brother leaves school for the stage, Europe’s unfolding tragedy sends each of their lives into terrifying uncertainty. At the end of Andras’s second summer in Paris, all of Europe erupts in a cataclysm of war. – 2011 favorite of Jackie, Head of Readers’ Services and Lisa J., Readers’ Services Librarian

Elliot Rosenzweig, a wealthy Chicago philanthropist, is attending opening night at the opera. Ben Solomon, a retired Polish immigrant, makes his way through the crowd and shoves a gun in Rosenzweig’s face, denouncing him as former SS officer, Otto Piatek. Solomon is blind-sided, knocked to the floor and taken away. Rosenzweig uses his enormous influence to get Solomon released from jail, but Solomon commences a relentless pursuit to bring Rosenzweig before the courts to answer for war crimes. - 2011 favorite of Pam S., Librarian Trainee

Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane’s natural independence and spirit – which prove necessary when she takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. Should she stay with him and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions, even if it means leaving the man she loves? Jane Eyre (1847) shocked readers with its passionate depiction of a woman’s search for equality and freedom.- 2011 favorite of Rosemarie G., Senior Library Clerk and Sonia, Readers’ Services Librarian

In a very near future—oh, let’s say next Tuesday—a functionally illiterate America is about to collapse. But don’t that tell that to poor Lenny Abramov, the thirty-nine-year-old son of an angry Russian immigrant janitor, proud author of what may well be the world’s last diary, and less-proud owner of a bald spot shaped like the great state of Ohio. …Lenny loves Eunice Park, an impossibly cute and impossibly cruel twenty-four-year-old Korean American woman who just graduated from Elderbird College with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness. – 2011 favorite of Lisa C., Assistant Director

This is the story of Sileria and its oppressed tribes, who have for centuries been crushed under the boot of successive conquerors. Despite their indomitable spirit… the Silerians have spent more time fighting amongst themselves than against their oppressors, most recently the loathsome Valdani. Tansen is the prophesied warrior who will drive out the Valdani, but his path is strewn with terrible obstacles. As word of his coming spreads, he joins with the infamous thief Josarian, who becomes the leader of a cadre as strange and disparate as the tribes of Sileria themselves. - 2011 favorite of Megan, Reference and Systems Librarian